Congress demands Kerala CM’s apology for his rudeness

Thiruvanthapuram, Feb 5: Kerala Chief Minister Pirayi Vijayan should apologise for his rude remarks against former minister P.S. taraja Pillai, the state Congress demanded on Sunday.

State Congress President V.M. Sudheeran told the media here that Vijayan’s remark was not acceptable from a Chief Minister.

“The best that Vijayan can do now and that too at the earliest is to apologise to Pillai’s family. It is most unfortute that Vijayan addressed taraja Pillai ‘as some Pillai’,” said Sudheeran.

Vijayan made the rude reference to taraja Pillai on Saturday when he was asked to comment on a row over the nearly 12 acres of land that is in possession of the Kerala Law Academy located in the capital city.

The academy’s students are on an indefinite protest, demanding the resigtion of its principal Lekshmi ir for her mismagement and rude behaviour. The land in the possession of the academy origilly belonged to taraja Pillai and was taken over by the then Diwan of Travancore C.P. Ramaswamy as a punishment to Pillai for participating in the freedom struggle.

Pillai, a respected figure in the state politics, served as a state Minister for Fince for Travancore-Cochin (1954-55).

He was also a member of the Constituent Assembly (1948-50), the Travancore legislative assembly (1944-47 and 1948-50), and the Travancore-Cochin legislative assembly (1951 and 1954-57).

Pillai also represented the Thiruvanthapuram Lok Sabha constituency in the third Lok Sabha as an independent candidate. He passed away in 1966.

Last week, taraja Pillai’s son N. Venkatesan asked the government to cancel the assignment of the 11.49 acres of land with the privately-run Kerala Law Academy, and take over its possession since the academy was trying to put it to commercial exploitation. Vijayan said his government has no plans to do anything of the kind as the family members of “some Pillai” asked for. (IANS)